The ostrich guitar or ostrich tuning is a type of trivial tuning. It assigns one note to all strings, e.g. E-E-e-e-e'-e' or D-D-D-D-d'-d'. The term "ostrich guitar" was coined by

the Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. The original line-up consisted of singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. MacLise w ...

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...

after the pre-Velvet Underground song "The Ostrich" by Lou Reed and the Primitives, on which he first recorded using this tuning, the first known commercial composition to make use of a trivial guitar tuning.

Musical theory

The trivial tuning is a

regular tuning Among alternative guitar-tunings, regular tunings have equal musical intervals between the paired notes of their successive open strings. ''Guitar tunings'' assign pitches to the open strings of guitars. Tunings can be ...

based on the

unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or per ...

musical interval, which has zero

semitone A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...

s. It assigns exactly one

pitch class In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positio ...

(for example D, A, F or B) to all guitar-strings, tuned to the same note over two or three octaves. This creates an intense, chorused

drone music Drone music, drone-based music, or simply drone, is a minimalist genre that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tone clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmon ...

, and interesting fingering potential. Among

alternative tunings Guitar tunings are the assignment of pitches to the open strings of guitars, including acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and classical guitars. Tunings are described by the particular pitches that are made by notes in Western music. B ...

for the

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, the trivial tuning is a regular and

repetitive tuning Repetitive tunings are alternative tunings for the guitar. A repetitive tuning begins with a list of notes that is duplicated, either at unison or at higher octaves. Among regular tunings, there are four repetitive-tunings (besides trivially r ...

. It is its own left-handed tuning.:

Example

To create a trivial D tuning from a standard guitar tuning: 1d ----- * downtuned to d (from e to d) 2d ----- * to d (from B to d) 3D ----- * downtuned to D (from G to D) 4D ----- * left at standard 5D ----- * to D (from A to D) 6D ----- * downtuned to D (from E to D)

Origins

The term "ostrich guitar" was coined by

in 1965 after the song "The Ostrich" by Lou Reed and the Primitives, on which he first used this tuning.

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...

, a collaborator with

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

composer

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...

, recognised the similarity between Reed's guitar tuning and Young's work involving

when he was hired to play Reed's song "The Ostrich" as part of a fabricated touring group. Reed and Cale (who would play

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

and bass) began to collaborate and investigate the connections between ostrich tuning and drone music, as the band introduced new members (such as guitarist

Sterling Morrison Holmes Sterling Morrison Jr. (August 29, 1942 – August 30, 1995) was an American guitarist, best known as one of the founding members of the rock group the Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, and ...

and percussionist

Angus MacLise Angus William MacLise (March 14, 1938 – June 21, 1979) was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher, known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground who abruptly quit due to disagreements with the band pla ...

, another student of La Monte Young) and they became known as

. Cale had composed and recorded ''Loop'' in 1964, but which became the first EP released under this band name, composed of drones played on an electric viola, and the combination of both Cale's viola and Reed's guitar tunings would be an early hallmark of their work. Reed used ostrich tunings on the 1967 album ''

The Velvet Underground & Nico ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' is the debut album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, released in March 1967 through Verve Records. It was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol's Ex ...

'' on the songs "

Venus in Furs ''Venus in Furs'' (german: Venus im Pelz, links=no) is a novella by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and the best known of his works. The novel was to be part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called ''Legacy of Cain ...

" (appearing at the end of the song) and "

All Tomorrow's Parties "All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''. Inspiration for the song came from Reed's observation of Andy Warh ...

", which also included Cale playing drones on viola. According to an interview with drummer

Moe Tucker Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944) is an American musician and singer-songwriter who was the drummer for the New York City-based rock band the Velvet Underground. After they disbanded in the early 1970s, she left the music industry ...

in ''What Goes On?'', Reed's ostrich guitar was a guitar that had its

fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instrume ...

s removed, and was stolen shortly after the album sessions.

Notes

References

External links

* * * (Recommended by ) * {{Guitar tunings, Regular Repetitive guitar-tunings Lou Reed